As we prepare to enter the Trumpian era and return to the days when white supremacists openly rejoiced in victory and the White House kitchen had no seasoned salt, the question remains: What is the etiquette for living under a president whose mere presence makes your skin crawl?
If President Barack Obama’s legacy leaves America nothing (except affordable health care, stability in the world economy, the lowest crime rate in decades and 16 million jobs), it has taught us how to antagonize the leader of the country with no regard or respect. For at least the next four years, you will now experience how it feels to have the heebie-jeebies every time the president’s face flashes across the screen. But how should you voice your disdain? Luckily, I am here to help you.
When looking for ways to oppose a president who stands for the opposite of everything you believe in, look no further than the grand pooh-bahs of hate and hostility; the world champions of conflict; the people holding the patent for the haterade recipe: white people.
For the last eight years, they have shown us the way, and now it is our turn to return the favor by using their tactics to thwart the efforts of our tangerine-tinted totalitarian.
1. Start a lie.
Don’t worry about whether it’s true or not. As Obama’s haters have shown us, the key to perpetuating a lie is just to repeat it so many times, people will begin to believe it, whether it’s true or not. Every time you tell an untruth, you must end with, “Look it up!” That alone legitimizes your falsehood. The same way conservatives believe that Mexicans are streaming over the border and taking jobs (even though net immigration from Mexico is negative, meaning that more Mexicans are leaving America than sneaking in), or how Muslims are coming to kill you (although white men have committed more terrorist acts in the U.S. since 9/11), you can create your own falsehood.
In fact, on the night he was elected, Sarah Palin could see all the way into Russia and spotted Russian terrorists rejoicing and dancing because of Trump’s victory. Plus, many people don’t know that much of this white backlash is caused by the fact that the penis size of the white male, conservative voter has shrunk by an average of .912 inches during the Obama presidency.
That last statement is actually true. Look it up!
2. Hope he fails.
You should thwart the president’s efforts at every turn. Ask your congressman to filibuster every proposal and refuse to vote on Trump's nominees. Even if he wants to do something universally accepted, give him hell.
There are some people who believe that hoping the president fails is akin to hoping that the pilot of your airplane crashes.
Nonsense.
Americans selected someone who told them that he had no experience flying a plane. Before he even boarded the flight, Trump boasted that he was going to reject the protocol of every pilot who came before him, ignore the laws of physics and disregard the rules of flying. He somehow finds himself in the cockpit of our democracy after he cast aside the Constitution, political protocol and presidential tradition to institute the will of right-wing racists set on crashing America into the ground. That is his stated agenda.
You should hope he fails.
3. Blame everything on him.
Regardless of how you feel about the Grand Old Party, you have to hand it to the Republicans in one respect: They always found a way to blame Obama for anything negative. Their mastery of mixing myth and total bulls—t is above reproach. Not only did they find a way to blame him for the failures of a war that started before he took office and an economy run into the ground by the previous president, but they also found ways to blame him for things he had no control of. Somehow, according to Republicans, Obama started the Islamic State, also known as ISIS; masterminded the French terrorist attacks; and still found enough time to engineer Hurricane Matthew.
Use this example to nail Trump for his misdeeds and everything else. The next time terrorists attack—even if not in this country—it’s fair game to blame it on Trump. When the unemployment rate rises (and trust me, it will) and gas goes up to $7 a gallon because Trump is overheard calling the leaders of OPEC nations “towel heads,” you know whose fault it is.
This morning I had to wake up to go to work and it was still dark outside. As I stumbled toward the light switch, I hit my pinky toe on the edge of the bed. It felt like I had been simultaneously shot, hit in the crotch and forced to listen to a Waka Flocka song featuring Soulja Boy.
Thanks, Trump.
4. Disrespect the office at every turn.
Sometimes I feel uneasy about disrespecting the highest office in our country by referring to the president-elect in such disparaging ways as “an overprivileged cockatoo with skin the color of SunnyD and the IQ of a Cabbage Patch Doll.” Then I remember when South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson shouted, “You lie” at the State of the Union. I recall when Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer put her finger in the face of the chief executive of the United States. I recollect how every other week, an email or Facebook post from the mayor, city councilman or police chief of some tiny town surfaces referring to the president as a primate. So no respect should be expected for a man who has demeaned and belittled almost every group of nonwhite males in this country.
Obviously, therefore, it’s OK to refer to Trump as “tiny-handed Hitler.”
Or the “comb-over in chief.”
Or the “Creamsicle-colored king.”
Or—OK. You catch my drift.
5. Extend your hate to the first family.
The one thing I will be thankful for when Trump takes office is that no one has ever disrespected Michelle, Sasha or Malia Obama to my face. Black America feels as if Michelle is our aunt who is still kinda fine, corrects our English and lets us drink out of the good glasses when we come visit. By extension, Sasha and Malia are our little cousins. Although I have never been confronted with the situation, I honestly think that I would fight someone I heard someone call the lady Obamas out of their name.
In fact, I believe that the most blatant evidence of the conservatives' hatred is their repeated attacks on Michelle, when she is the most elegant, graceful and beautiful first lady of our lifetimes. Do you remember how black America harassed Laura Bush, or any of the other previous first ladies, about their lack of melanin or booty?
Of course you don’t, because it never happened.
We should make up for lost time and just be petty for the next four years. Tweet Donald Trump Jr. and ask why his dad never bought him a jawline. Tell Trump we hope he can make America as close together as Eric’s eyes. Ask Ivanka if pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership will affect the shipments of Third World-baby tears she injects into her forehead and lips.
Considering how they have treated President Obama, his family and this entire administration for the past eight years, white people can’t even complain when you post nude pictures of Melania Trump and ask how she rose to become first lady from working as an exotic dancer in a strip club owned by Vladimir Putin.
That last fact is actually true.
Look it up.